GreenHat wrote:
The gesture should have been the other way around.
"Hey Ray you took less from before and you saved our season with an amazing shot. As a gesture of goodwill opt out of your contract and we'll max you out for this season (I think 3.7), you've earned it"
That's the true gesture of goodwill.
Mickey is not in actuality sacrificing anything. Look at how much value the franchise will gain by the end of this run and tell me how much he is sacrificing. Or how easy it will be to get the city to pay for a new arena after a bunch of championships.
When a billionaire says he is losing money out of one of his pockets, its a good idea to check how much money is going into his other pocket. When you own dozens of companies you can make any one company look unprofitable on paper.
Ray's a smart guy. He wasn't pressured to opt in. He clearly looked at what lies ahead in terms of economics for the Heat, what it's going to cost the franchise to keep putting competitive rosters on the floor, what every other player on the team has done in terms of their own contracts, and came to his own decision.
And while the value of the franchise should be unquestionably high at the end of this run, we're a long way for that point. It's still early yet. Once their TV deal comes together they should finally be profitable year-in and year-out. But as it is now, from everything I've read/heard, 2011-12 was the first season the franchise turned even a minimal profit since they've been at American Airlines Arena. The CBA, luxury taxes, revenue sharing, etc. seems to have taken it's toll. Could be a case of creative accounting, but that info is all there is to go on.
Ultimately, Mickey's gesture of goodwill is coming this year and beyond when he's paying that hefty repeater's tax for as long as LeBron, Wade, and Bosh are still on board together in Miami.
I'm never going to knock Mickey for trying to practice some type of fiscal responsibility. Especially when he's shown that he's more than willing to pony up and spend to win. Not every franchise owning billionaire is going to be a gunslinger without conscience like Prokhorov. Even Cuban eventually realized he had to tighten the purse strings.